Funding will pay for raises, offset school construction
Gary Corsair
Staff Writer
Yes, education is a priority in North Carolina.
State lawmakers made that abundantly clear by increasing the 2022-'23 budget by $900 million more than originally planned before they headed home for the summer.
The revised budget of $27.9 billion — the largest in state history — reflected an earnest commitment to schools and the people who work in them. For example, legislators earmarked $100 million in supplemental pay for public school teachers in 95 of North Carolina's 100 counties including Clay. The five largest, wealthiest counties were excluded.
For local educators, the supplemental pay from the state is in addition to a salary bump made possible by a contribution by the Clay County Board of Commissioners.
"Teachers are already scheduled to get an average raise of 2.5 percent, now it will be 4 percent or 4.2 percent on top of that," Superintendent of Schools Dale Cole remarked Tuesday. "I appreciate the county commissioners providing a $1.5 percent local supplement for our teachers. That made a big difference."
The teaching profession never looked better. Beginning teachers will start their careers with a salary of $37,000 in Clay County. Naturally, Cole is pleased.
"We certainly need to up the salaries of our teachers in order to encourage more young people to go into the field so we'll have enough teachers to have schools in the ways we always have," Cole said.
Support staff also fared well when legislators passed the budget.
"Something I'm really excited about is that it also provided either a 4 percent raise or move to $15 an hour for all of our classified staff because another area that is really struggling is bus drivers, child nutrition staff, custodians and maintenance workers," Cole said. "Just trying to compete with private sector salaries now is a challenge because everyone is looking for help. We've got to be able to compete. It's no different than with the teachers. We just cannot allow our public education staff, both classified and certified to languish. Because we won't be able to replace them when they retire."
Replacing bus drivers is a "critical need." Clay County Schools has 21 regular bus drivers, three less than they need. Thanks to state legislators, newly-hired drivers will start at $15/hour.
To further sweeten the pot, Clay County Commissioners kicked in $30,000 Cole will use to entice potential drivers.
"We're going to use that $30,000 to provide a $1,000 bonus for each of our 21 regular bus drivers," Cole said. "Hopefully those bonuses will allow us to convince some people to drive for us so we don't have to make double runs and get kids up so early in the morning and get them home so late in the afternoon."
Lawmakers aren't about to let educational facilities languish. They dedicated a large chunk of the budget to improving facilities.
The state allocated $8 million for Clay County Schools in needs-based grants to "build or restore schools." That's on top of $32 million promised last year.
"What the General Assembly did with this new budget is they re-funded that grant program and actually put more money into it," Cole said. "What we applied for was a grant to build a third through eighth grade school, which is a middle school. The max you could get for a middle school was $40 million, so we applied for $40 million."
The $40 million may just cover a grandiose plan to make local schools safer by connecting 13 buildings (counting trailers).
"We want to combine them under one roof and then connect that building to our high school and the elementary school gym so that our students no longer have to walk outside to go to their classes," Cole said. "That's just for safety reasons so that once our students enter they don't have to walk outside. We'll have enclosed breezeways and secure entrances at each of our schools. That's the first rule of school safety, having secure entrances so people don't just have instant access to our students."
Then again, $40 million may not be enough. Two years ago, architects provided an estimate of $43 to $44 million.
"Of course, prices have gone up as far as construction during the pandemic because the price of materials has gone up," Cole said. "We're not 100 percent sure yet, but we are a whole lot closer to what we need to build everything we need with the additional $8 million."